


Turn to Your Mind

by Yognautical (KiiKitsune)



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiiKitsune/pseuds/Yognautical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the explosion all Rythian can do is protect what he has left.</p>
<p>Set in an alternate, much less happy reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn to Your Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a randomly generated word prompt of ‘stain’, ‘dinner’ and ‘wine’.  
> Title from ‘Haunt’ by Bastille.

Rythian sets out two places at his table. Two plates. Two forks. Two knives. Two wine glasses. A single bottle of wine sits in the center, flanked by a corkscrew and a gravity gun.

Off to the side, the furnace glows. The sweet smell of cooking pork wafts out into the open air. He’s no chef, but his hand has always been sure on the hilt of a butcher’s knife.

Across from the furnace another light emanates from the wall. The steady, sickly blue of a portal stands out starkly against the flickering firelight. 

Rythian drags one of two chairs across the dusty floor, wood scraping loudly over bumpy rock, and sits down facing the portal. He takes the gravity gun off the table and sets it in his lap as one might as cat; his arm resting lightly across its bulk and his bejeweled fingers stroking mindlessly at the seams in the plating. 

He waits. 

Time wins in the end, as it always does. The portal makes a soft blipping sound as Lalna steps through. Rythian turns the gun on and aims it haphazardly, shooting the blue portal off into the distance.

“What-” Lalna pushes his goggles up into his hair, careless of the way it bends his bangs straight upwards. His eyes are dim in the furnace light, but Rythian watches intently as they flicker across the surroundings before settling on him. “Where am I?’

“The Crater,” Rythian says. He stands, dragging the chair back over to the table and setting the gravity gun back down beside the wine bottle. “I thought we could talk.”

He turns his back to retrieve the pork from the furnace. It’s a gamble, but Rythian has always made it a point to know his enemies well. Curiosity has always been one of Lalna’s greater failings. 

The portal gun isn’t activated again and Rythian doesn’t feel the hot burn of laser fire against his skin. When he brings the pork to the table, Lalna hasn’t even moved. Rythian sets a pork chop on each plate and gestures to the seat across from him. Lalna takes two hesitant steps forward before licking his chapped lips and crossing the distance at a normal pace. 

As he sits down, Rythian takes the wine bottle and corkscrew in hand. The pop echoes strangely in the space. He pours for them both. The red liquid looks black in the faint light. 

“It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Rythian begins carving away a piece of pork, eyes focused on his plate, as he speaks. 

“Like I’m going to trust the guy I know wants to kill me.”

Rythian stops, finally looking up. Lalna doesn’t appear angry, per say, but certainly uncomfortable. Everything is a joke, until it isn’t.

“When I kill you,” Rythian says, slowly and clearly, “you will be bleeding on the ground with my boot on your stomach and my blade in your chest.”

Lalna licks his dry lips again and picks up the cutlery. 

Rythian takes a bite of his pork. It tastes like ashes on his tongue, so he washes it down with the wine. 

“Why am I here, Rythian?”

“You needed to see this. What you did.”

“I didn’t do anything. If Zoey hadn’t-”

The cutlery handles bang loudly against the table when Rythian brings them down. Lalna jumps. 

“Don’t. You. Dare.” 

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Lalna’s hand gravitates towards his lab coat; towards his mining laser. 

“There are worse things than death.”

Lalna looks around at the desolation around them. “You would know.”

Rythian waits for a smirk, a laugh, anything. Nothing comes. Somehow, that’s worse. There’s nothing to justify the rage the words cause him. Nothing except the truth. Of all the horrors he’s faced, none had ever been quite so terrifying. 

Lalna tries again. “I’ve seen the damage, now. But that’s not the only reason I’m here, is it?”

“No,” Rythian takes another swallow of the bitter wine, “I want to propose a… truce.”

Lalna’s eyebrows raise up. “Why?”

“I have to protect what I have left.”

“And what is that, exactly?” There’s something off about Lalna’s voice. Rythian doesn’t have time to question it; not with Lalna suddenly feeling bold and standing up. Rythian scrambles up as well, stepping back as Lalna circles the table. “What do you have left, Rythian?”

Rythian raises a defensive hand between them, only to have it caught and used to drag him closer. He pulls and tugs, but Lalna’s grip is unyielding. The scientist grabs at his fingers and yanks the rings off. They clatter against the stone beneath them; the sound nearly drowned out by Rythian’s own panicked breathing. 

“Let go!”

Lalna draws even closer. His breath burns away the mask over Rythian’s face.

“What could you possibly have left to hide?”

Rythian flails, his knuckles hitting the side of the table. Their eyes are locked. Despite how hard he tries, looking away is impossible. 

“What do you have left?”

He gropes across the table blindly as Lalna’s free hand closes around his throat. It doesn’t actually choke him until Lalna’s palm presses flat against his Adam’s apple. Rythian’s fingers brush the body of the half-empty wine bottle. 

His tongue feels too thick for his mouth. 

He finds the neck of the bottle. 

His eyes feel like they’re pulsing in time with his heartbeat. 

He smashes the bottle down on Lalna’s head and stumbles back out of the hold, doubled over and coughing. When he looks up again, Lalna is gone. So is the table. And the furnace. And a glance down at his hands reveals that the wine bottle isn’t wine at all; just some of Ravs’ questionable squid juice. His rings are still there; lifeless and dull as they had been since the explosion. 

There’s a red stain on the stone, but it isn’t from spilt wine. He sits down beside it because, really, what else does he have?


End file.
